AI company Anthropic has signed its first deal in Australia, an agreement to use part of the $32 billion data centre hub proposed for Queensland's Western Downs. The Western Downs Digital Park — set to be the largest facility of its kind in the country, with a power draw comparable to 1.5 million average Australian households — represents an investment almost five times greater than the 2032 Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games infrastructure budget.
The facility is to be built near Dalby by Singaporean developer Zerra DC and is expected to create thousands of ongoing jobs — but nothing is approved yet. Anthropic's lease is subject to Foreign Investment Review Board approval, the park itself still needs council sign-off, and Anthropic aims to start using the centre in 2027 despite the development application only being filed with the local council in August. The ABC understands Anthropic would use the site to power its AI assistant Claude to answer user questions, rather than to train AI models.
Premier David Crisafulli claimed the deal as a direct result of his recent US trade mission. "This is a major win that will deliver more jobs, put more energy into Queensland's grid and drive down power prices for Queenslanders," he said. "My meeting with Anthropic during the trade mission was to outline why Queensland was the place to invest, with energy security, locations to invest and a streamlined approvals process to get it right." The government says the digital park would need no new transmission infrastructure and would use minimal water in operation — broadly comparable, it says, to a conventional office building of the same size.
The deal also lands on freshly contested energy ground. The federal Labor government had wanted all new data centres anchored by new renewable energy projects; Queensland's LNP administration successfully argued to go its own way with a mix including coal and gas. Capital Brief reports (subscription) the facility will run on coal and gas power until renewables are built, weeks after the prime minister watered down the renewables requirement. "To have secured Anthropic's first major investment in Australia is an endorsement for our state's open for business approach," Mr Crisafulli said, calling it a chance to be "at the forefront of locking in data sovereignty".
On the Downs itself, the welcome is conditional. Federal Maranoa MP David Littleproud backed the project but said it must deliver "genuine, lasting benefits" for the local community: "Power reliability and cost for existing homes, farmers and businesses cannot be sacrificed to get this project across the line." Farmer Liza Balmain, spokesperson for Save Our Darling Downs, said the community had been "asking for the brakes to be put on" the project. "We are deeply concerned about the proposed energy consumption of this particular data centre … and the fact that it could be running on gas-fired power generation," she said.
The scale of what is planned was laid out when the application landed: a 725-hectare site 250 kilometres west of Brisbane that ABC reporting found could lift Queensland's daily electricity use by 25 per cent at full build-out, with construction expected to take four to six years. Anthropic itself is an unusual anchor tenant in one respect the ABC noted: its CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei recently issued a public warning about the pace of AI development.
For now, the timeline tension stands: a tenant aiming to switch on in 2027, attached to a park whose approval process, on the council's own reckoning when the application was lodged, could take years. Between the FIRB, the Western Downs Regional Council and the grid, Queensland's biggest-ever data centre bet now has a marquee name attached — and everything left to prove.